Āḍhaka
Āḍhaka, “a measure of capacity”
Grammar: noun; the name of a measure of capacity.
Meaning: a measure of grain, ghee and other things measured by volume. Four āḍhakas make one droṇa.
In the scriptures: in the teaching on dāna which Agnideva gives Vasishṭha Maharshi, the rite of the guḍa-dhenu (a cow made of jaggery, given as dāna) is followed by a table of weights and measures: five guruvinda seeds make a māsha, sixteen māshas a suvarṇa, four suvarṇas a pala, a hundred palas a tulā, twenty tulās a bhāra, and four āḍhakas a droṇa. The same chapter measures the mountain of grain given as dāna in droṇas: a thousand droṇas is the best, five hundred the middle and two hundred and fifty the lowest (Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 210).
On the fruit of pūjā, Agnideva tells Vasishṭha that one who performs abhisheka of Śrī Mahāvishṇu with a prastha of ghee gains the fruit of giving a crore of cows; one who performs abhisheka with an āḍhaka of ghee obtains a kingdom; and one who bathes him with milk mixed with ghee obtains svarga (Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 248).
In the care of horses which Śālihotra teaches Suśruta, horses are fed four āḍhakas of husked barley every day, with gram, grain, green gram and peas (Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 289).
In the Bhavishya Purāṇa, the measure appears in the gifts shaped as cows: the tila-dhenu is a cow of four āḍhakas with a calf of one droṇa (Bhavishya Purāṇa, Uttara Parva, Chapter 152), and in the lavaṇa-dhenu one āḍhaka of salt is set out as the cow (Bhavishya Purāṇa, Uttara Parva, Chapter 155). The Hindi rendering of the Purāṇa gives the āḍhaka there as four sers.
Related terms: Droṇa · Prastha · Pala · Tulā · Bhāra
Sources
- Agni Purāṇa, Chapters 210, 248, 289
- Bhavishya Purāṇa, Uttara Parva, Chapters 152, 155